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LET T/IE FMG WIVE 

CLINTON ^COLLs^RD 





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LET THE FLAG WAVE 



LET THE FLAG WAVE 

WITH OTHER VERSES WRITTEN IN WAR-TIME 



By 
CLINTON SCOLLARD 



NEW YORK 

JAMES T. WHITE & CO. 
1917 






Copyright 1917 
hy Clinton ScoUard 



/ 

3! i9i7 



©1,A4G2996 



CONTENTS 

The Flag to the Wind - - - 2 
V. The Bell Ringer .... 9 

At the Grave of Lawrence - - 11 

At the Home of Francis Scott Key - - 13 

I America to her Young Men - - 15 

b-5 Ballad of "Old Glory" - - - 16 

\ In Time of Danger - - - 20 

Said "Light Horse Harry Lee" - - 21 

Little Princes, Little Kings - - 22 

Ballad of a Baker - - - - 24 

OffFinistere - - - - 27 

A Hill in Picardy - - - - 29 

The Little Lad .... 30 

At Brussels - - - - - 31 

The Dancing Man of Normandy - - 33 

The Lunar Bow - - - - 36 

At the Year's Decline - - - 37 

The Reeds of the Somme - - - 38 

A Wooden Cross - - - - 39 

At Becquincourt - - - - 40 

The Spirit of France - - - 41 

The Chant of the Hun - - - 42 

A Summer Morning - - - 43 

What Tidings - - - - 44 

The Old Man of the Mountains - - 45 

Greece - - - - - 46 



On an American Soldier Slain Upon the Mexican 

Border - - - . 47 

Texas Rangers - - . .43 

Mother England - - - - 50 

Kitchener of Khartum - - - 52 

Walsyngham Way - - - 53 

A Man of the Peak - - . - 54 



A Recruit 



55 



In London-Town - - . - 56 

May in Devon - - - - 57 

To Alan Seeger - - _ - 58 



Let the flag wave! Aye, let it ivave on high. 
Its red and white and blue against the sky! 
From crest and casement, broad and bright and brave. 
Let the flag wave! 

Let the flag wave! Aye, let it wave above 
The hills and valleys of the land we love. 
And o'er the sea, to no mad tyrant slave. 
Let the flag wave! 

Let the flag wave! Aye, let its glory shine! 
Let the flag wave, a symbol, and a sign! 
To guard our honor and to shield and save. 
Let the flag wave! 

Let the flag wave! Aye, wave in all men's sight, 
Its stars unsullied as the stars of night; 
Its stripes unblemished; only this we crave — 
Let the flag wave! 



1] 



THE FLAG TO THE WIND 

What is the word of the flag 

To the world-wide wanderer, Wind, 

Now that valley and crag 

Are fair with the flush of May, — 

Now that the boughs once thinned 

By the spectral hand of the frost, 

Laughing in leaf, are tossed 

In the golden face of the day? 

Flung over valley and crag. 

This is the word of the Flag! 

"Far in the lustrums gone, 

In freedom I had my birth, 

Yet I am young as the dawn. 

Or the fresh Maytime of earth. 

I have outlived my fears 

In the stress of the wheeling years. 

Until, in my strength, I feel. 

With my Stripes and my gathered Stars, 

That I stand for a Nation's weal, 

Supreme o'er the roar of wars. 



2j 



"Since I to the morn unfurled 
Over this fair new world, 
Mine has it been to urge 
The pulse of the patriot surge, 
Whether it swept the plain 
In the stormy wake of Wayne, 
Or leaped on the parapet 
At the shout of Lafayette. 
Proudly I waved on high 
At Lawrence's valiant cry, 
And fluttered in glory again 
When Decatur sailed the main; 
From the banks of the Rio Grande 
I flung in the face of the foe 
Till I took my triumph stand 
On the walls of Mexico! 



3] 



"And when the North and the South, 

Sworn brothers, drew apart, 

When Love was withered by drouth, 

And Hate was the flower of the heart, 

Through ways of passion and pain, 

Through waste of life and of lands, 

Back did I lead again 

To the kindred clasping of hands. 

Ne'er did my courage fail 

In the doubtful days and dark. 

Though under the fiery gale 

The loved of the land grew stark. 

I, who had seen the light 

In the eyes of Washington, 

Had faith that the gloom of night 

Would yield once more to the sun; 

So, rent and riven and torn. 

Did I cheer the war-ranks worn. 

Till the silent soldier came, 

The man of deathless name, 

Who brought from the strife release. 

And the lovely lilies of Peace. 



4] 



"And when the trump of war 

Pealed in the dawn once more, 

And far Corregidor, 

By the warm Philippine shore, 

Hearkened our guns proclaim 

The end of a rule of Shame, 

And when the fairest isle 

In the surge of the Carib main, 

Cruelly crushed too long 

By Spanish greed and guile. 

Listed the stern refrain 

Of our mighty battle-song, 

A hail did I fling to all 

Of the free that erst were thrall. 



[5] 



"Aad now that one of the strain 

Of the terrible Tamerlane, 

And Attila, the Hun, 

Cries his vaunt to the sun. 

Clamors of God and prates 

While he sows his pestilent hates, 

Writes his creed of Crime 

Large on the Book of Time, 

Poses, self-suflSced, 

Linked with Anti-Christ, 

Lord of Terror, lord 

Of all by Love abhorred, 

Of all by Faith and Trust 

Held as Death and the dust, — 

Over, against his power 

Steadfast do I mark 

The coming of that hour 

When he shall be whelmed in the dark! 



"Out of the Wrong the Right! 
Out of the murk the light ! 
Such is the message I bear 
Ever abroad on the air. 
I stand for the hearth and home, 
For our precious Mother-Earth, 
For her leagues of fertile loam, 
And her mountains great of girth; 
O'er the living and dead I wave. 
Blessing the cradle and grave; 
And for none my folds are tossed 
With a more exultant pride 
Than for those who have been lost, — 
Than for those who have bravely died 
That the Nation might abide. 
And the Right be glorified ! 



7] 



"Then blow, O Wind, where ye will. 

This errand to fulfill ! 

Say thou of the sleeping ones, — 

*Ye died for the land of your love !' 

Say thou to her living sons, — 

'Strive ye to keep her true. 

Spotless before the God above 

For the eyes of the world to view ; 

True to her highest trust. 

Untouched by the taint of Greed, 

Unsoiled by all the canker and lust 

That base ambitions breed, — 

One people faithful and free 

From the marge of the sea to the sea!' " 

Flung over valley and crag, 
Fair, or tattered and thinned. 
Such is the word of the Flag, 
The word of the Flag to the Wind! 



[8] 



I 



THE BELL RINGER 

(July, 1776) 

The grizzled ringer, stern and tense 
From dragging hours of grim suspense. 

Sighed as he leaned against the wall; 
Below, where still the throng was dense. 

The thrall of silence held them all. 

"They will not sign!" the old man said; 
The July sunshine, hot and red, 

Beat blindingly on street and square- 
Yet, though he knew it not, o'erhead 

What mighty portents filled the air! 

Prevision of a nation's birth. 

Of words that should engirdle earth 

Swift borne upon aerial wings. 
Smite tyranny's embattled girth, 

And shake the very thrones of kings. 



And then a sudden voice out-sang — 
"Ring! Ring!" The eager ancient sprang 

And swayed and swung the iron tongue 
That flung its far-resounding clang 

As to the quivering rope he clung. 

Hark! — still its echoes sweep and swell 
Up every height, through every dell, 

Beneath our blessed arc of sky! — 
O ringer of our freedom bell, 

Ring ever, lest a nation die ! 



[10 1 



AT THE GRAVE OF LAWRENCE 

(Trinity Churchyard) 

Morn and noon of day and even, human ebb and 
flow; 

Overhead, the stars of midnight, scarce the faintest 
glow, 

Shrunken into misty marshfires by the city's glare; 

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, — pause, and hail him 
fair ! 

Here he sleeps where jostling Wall Street merges in 
Broadway, 

And the roar is as a legion leaping to the fray. 

Out from Trinity's dim portal floats the chanting 
choir; 

Matchless midst the girdling granite lifts the graceful 
spire. 

Many slumberers around him, men of church and 
state; 

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, great among the great ! 

Simple lines to mark his slumber; — how the letters 
speak ! 

"Lawrence" (hark, ye money-getters!) "of the 
Chesapeake!" 

[Ill 



Stone may call in clearer accents than the loudest lip. 

Just a name! What does it cry you? "Don't give 
up the Ship!" 

Aye, there's something more than millions, — a far 
nobler aim! 

Here he sleeps, our sailor hero, nothing but a name! 

Yet (and who can pierce the future?) this may one 
day be 

As a burning inspiration both on land and sea. 



n 



AT THE HOME OF FRANCIS SCOTT KEY 

Bland are the skies o'er calm Potomac's tide, 
Curving, a shining sirkle, toward the sea. 

And o'er the memoried spot hard by my side 
Where stood the home of Key. 

A dozen banners toss in the free air. 

Red, white and bkie in shimmering folds above; 
And what more fitting than wide-waving there 

The bright flag of his love ! 

Beyond, Virginia's slopes of dappled sheen 
Glint in the radiance of the summer sun 

Where, hallowed by their hosts of dead, are seen 
The heights of Arlington. 

But not to them our thought goes out, though limned 
By deathless glories that to them belong, 

But unto him whose lips, anointed, hymned 
Our land's first battle song! 



13] 



Aye, unto him who on that crucial morn 
Beheld our banner shine as still it shines, 

And penned with patriot joy and patriot scorn 
His uieuiurable Hues! 

His be the honor, his the nation's praise, 
The nation's love, the nation's fealty! 

Muse, keep forever green the wreath of bays 
About the brow of Key ! 



[ 14 



AMERICA TO HER YOUNG MEN 

America saith to her young men — Behold me! 

Have I not mothered you, not reared you well? 
Close in your girdling arms should you not fold me. 

Safe-guarded as within a citadel? 

Have I not given my bounty and my beauty 
To you, aforetime nurslings at my breast? 

And should not love inspire you, and not duty, 
Should threatening danger put you to the test? 

America saith to her young men — Remember 
That honor is a high and holy thing ! 

Rather be life but as a quenched ember 
Than you unworthy of your mothering! 



15] 



BALLAD OF "OLD GLORY" 

(August, 1777) 

Hear the story ' 

Of ''Old Glory—'' 
How the flag was first unfurled 

Above the land 

By a dauntless hand 
In the heart of a ivooded world! 

'Twas the red August light 

That brooded over the sky; 
And the dog-star glowered by night 

With the gleam of its baleful eye; 
And the leaguers cried, "If ye're stubborn still, 

Forsooth, ye are like to die!" 

Here St. Leger lay. 

And the boastful Baronet there; 
And the painted savage horde 

Crouched in their leafy lair; 
And they tightened under the veil of the dark 

The meshes of their snare. 



16 



But the gallant Gansevoort, 

He would not yield an ell; 
Bullet for bullet he bandied them, 

And he flung them shell for shell; 
And he grimly swore that he's stand his ground 

Till the last defender fell. 

From the parapet his gaze, 

In the blaze of the middle morn. 
Lit on the leaguer's camp, 

And marked it silent and shorn; 
Then sudden out from the wood there leaped 

A ranger wander-worn. 

The back-swung gate he gained, 

And he shouted, "Herkimer!" 
"Where?" cried the gallant Gansevoort; 

"He comes," quoth the wanderer, 
"From the bivouac-place at Orisca's pines 

By the road through fern and fir. 



[ 17 



"And this is the word he sends, — 

'Fire thou a signal gun, 
And fall in force on the leaguer's front 

Ere the nooning of the sun.' " 
Then, "Volunteers!" cried Gansevoort, 

And there sprang forth many an one. 

Down on the leaguer's camp 

With a battle-shout they bore; 
(Some had gone ere the gray of dawn 

Toward the clear Orisca's shore 
To harry the hardy Herkimer 

On-pressing to the fore;) 
And those of the startled leaguers left, 

I'faith, they were smitten sore! 

Hither and yon they fled, 

As under a terror spell; 
While arms and stores by triple scores 

To the valiant victors fell. 
"A flag," cried the gallant Gansevoort, 

"Of our success should tell!" 



18] 



A flag? They had only heard 

What the emblem was to be, — 
Of the stripes and stars as the avatars 

That should symbol Liberty, 
That should tell the earth of the blessed birth 

Of a people truly free! 

And these undaunted souls, 

Foiled should they be? Not they! 

In the cumber and clutter of battle spoils 
A keen eye saw the way 

To show the foe what should work them woe 
Upon many an after day ! 

The folds of a camlet cloak 

To the banner brought its blue; 
A British soldier's red coat lent 

The stripes of a ruddy hue; 
A sheet gave white, then in the light 

Of the August noon it flew. 

And oh, what a cheer went up 
To the vault of the burning sky! 

Ah, many a marching year since then 
Has the fair Flag waved on high! 

And many another year, God please, 
Shall the same brave banner fly! 

[19] 



IN TIME OF DANGER 

Blind to danger we have been, 
Walking on our wonted ways 
Through the drifting of the days 
In and out, and out and in. 

To our patriot duty stranger. 
Wandering as in a maze, 
Blind to danger. 

Deaf to danger, and our need. 
We have drunken to the lees 
Of the drugged wine of ease; 
To our honor given no heed, 

Paltered, played the money-changer; 
Cast aside old memories, 
Deaf to danger. 

BUnd and deaf to danger? Nay! 
Fling the call from shore to shore ! 
Wake! the slothful hour is o'er! 
Wake! be gone with base delay. 

To our trust no longer stranger! 
Freemen, rouse, and be no more 
Blind to danger. 
Deaf to danger ! 
[20 1 



SAID LIGHT HORSE HARRY LEE 

Said "Light Horse Harry Lee," 

The flower of old Virginian chivalry, 

Virile and valiant on the fighting line 

At Brandywine, 

And many another sanguine field, said he, 

"That nation is a murderer of its men 

Which sends them unprepared against the foe!" 

Shall we be slothful, then. 

And shall red Crime 

Attaint us on the record-book of Time? 

Answer, ye Powers that shape our destiny, — "No!" 

Aye, answer once again, — 

"By all we cherish, — No!" 



[21 



LITTLE PRINCES, LITTLE KINGS 

Little princes, little kings, 

With your arrogance of birth. 
And your pale and puny vision, 
Here, where ways should he elysian, 

Here, where days were meant for mirth, 
In your madness and derision. 

You have made a hell of earth! 

Pawns to you are all the people 
Moved about a narrowed board; 

They have sweat and blood for raiment, 

And to each and every claimant 
Of the bounty that you hoard, 

In the richness of your payment 
You have offered them a sword ! 

For their sacrificial service 

What suflfices? What atones? 

You have driven them as cattle 

Down the fiery lanes of battle 

(Hear you how the death wind moans?) 

While you parley, while you prattle, 
Safe upon your gilded thrones! 

[22] 



You have purged your souls of pity 

For a dole of niggard gain; 
You have heaped on wives and daughters 
Such a holocaust of slaughters ! 

Do you glory in the slain? 
What were wastes on wastes of waters 

To absolve you of the stain! 

Up the hazy vasts of distance 
Glimpse you no avenging wings. 

You who reft God's world of quiet 

With your ravage, rage and riot. 
With your ruthless wantonings? 

Fear you not the final flat, 
Little princes, little kings? 

Little princes, little kings. 

With your arrogance of birth. 
And your pale and puny vision, 
Here, where ways should be elysian. 

Here, where days were meant for mirth. 
In your madness and derision. 

You have made a hell of earth! 



BALLAD OF A BAKER 

This is the tale of a Gallic baker 

Who now is guest of the seraphim; 
He had no need for an undertaker. 

As the Vandals played that part for him! 

In August-tide, in the year of flame, 
(Or shall I name it the year of Shame?) 
To Gerbervillers the Vandals came; 
And the Vandal colonel raged and roared 
Because, forsooth, there was much at stake. 
And there was a stream which he could not ford. 
And there was a bridge which he could not take. 
For he dared not meet the deadly ire 
Of the gun that is known as the "rapid-fire," 
And there were twain on the village ridge 
Where the street ran up from the river bridge. 
And sixty chausseurs to train them, too. 
And hold the town from the Vandal crew. 



24 



But sixty men may not face a corps, 

With the end of their fighting store in view, 

Hence at last the chausseurs sHpped away, 

And the Vandals surged from the river shore. 

Foiled, but frenzied with the fray. 

Foiled, — and they must have vengeance, so 

The helpless villagers they led 

Out in blinded files of fives, 

("What — " they said — "are their silly lives!") 

And though none had lifted a hand for a blow. 

They lined them up, and they shot them dead. 



25 



Then they found a baker, a harmless fellow, 

Shrinking back where his ovens were, 

In which his cakes of white and yellow 

He baked for the peaceful villager. 

And just to show that they were not sloven 

On the road to win them a new renown. 

They opened the door of the widest oven, 

And they shunted the shrieking baker in, 

(What was his crime, pray, what was his sin?) 

And they kindled a fire, and they baked him brown, — 

Brown as one of his loaves. . . . No doubt 

When the dusk dropped down, and the fire was out. 

In the calm and cool of the even-tide, 

Where the Gerbervillers fields stretched wide. 

They sat and gravely talked of Kultur, 

For that is the boast of the Vandal Vulture ! 

I recall that the poet Milton 

Pictured a pit not lit with candles; 
And since it's fact that this tale is built on. 

Wouldn't that be a good place for the Vandals? 



26 



OFF FINISTERE 

Off Finistere King Arthur rides, 

Off Finistere in Brittany; 
He hears the tumult of the tides 

Beat in across the barren sea. 

The sound is like the sullen roar 
Of war within some distant place, 

For round the isles and up the shore 
The angry breakers boom and race. 

The good king wears his vizor down; 

His form is bent; his head is bowed; 
And mighty hosts of old renown 

In serried files about him crowd. 

They, too, throughout their spectral lines 
Seem weighted with the thought of woe; 

In their demeanor one divines 
Sad memories of long ago. 

Yet none of all, from king to hind, 

Is girdled as with coward fears; 
They set their faces to the wind, 

And grip their swords, and couch their spears. 

[27] 



"Still, still," they murmur, "although long 
The battle rage, and far is peace, 

We will fight on against the wrong 
Till horror and oppression cease ! 

"For we are mantled with the Right; 

Are armored with a holy mail. 
And we will face the Dragon Might 

Until the bloody Dragon quail!" 

Now that the spring's tumultuous tides 
Storm on the land and scourge the sea, 

Off Finistere King Arthur rides. 
Off Finistere in Brittany. 



[28 



A HILL IN PICARDY 

There is a little hill in Picardy 
That, in the bygone days, was fair to see 
With silvery leaves of the slim poplar tree. 
Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! 

White were the boles as are a maiden's hands; 
And there were willow-withes and hazel-wands. 
And ferns, with frail antennae of their fronds. 
Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! 

And there the purple violets made spring 
A dream of loveliness; many a tender thing — 
Vervain and vetch — added its glamouring. 
Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! 

And there was morn and vesper song of birds 
Whereto the wind joined with its joyous words; 
And there was kindly shade for the sleek herds. 
Ah, lovely little hill in Picardy! 

But now — but now — what is there left to see 
Save desolation? Riven earth and tree 
And lines of crosses tell their tale. Ah, me, 
This lonely little hill in Picardy! 

[29 1 



THE LITTLE LAD 

(France, 1914) 

He was a little lad of blithesome mien 

Whose added summers might have been fourteen; 

And yet, for all his brief years, he was clad 

With mail of courage, was the little lad. 

About him, in a swift surge, closed the foe. 

Did he know this — and that? He did not know. 

Then, while they questioned, flamed a ring of fire 

That scourged them. In their fierce chagrin and ire. 

Their mood of vengeance, merciless and mad, 

Who should be sacrificed? The little lad! 



30 



AT BRUSSELS 

(October, 1915) 

Not under the light of the dawn was the deed of horror 

done, 
Nor yet in the blaze of the noon, under the gaze of 

the sun. 
But in the stealth of the night. Such is the way of 

the Hun ! 

What saith the Word? As ye sow, thus shall ye 

also reap! 
Once, we read, there was one, a dastard who murdered 

sleep, 
And summoned the furies of Hell from the vasts of 

the outer deep. 

Out of the nether gloom again shall the brood not 

come. 
And gather about his bed, vengeful, demoniac, dumb, 
Who wrought for a woman a crown, the crown of 

martyrdom? 



31 



Foul upon history's page there is written many a blot. 
Fury and lust and rage, rapine and sack and plot, 
Cruelty and crime, from the time of Iscariot! 

But naught more wanton than this under the eyes of 

the Lord! 
Naught to be more despised, naught to be more 

abhorred ! 
What shall the guerdon be? What be the just 

reward? 



32 



THE DANCING MAN OF NORMANDY 

Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A funny little old man is he, 

With his long white beard and his crooked staff, 

And his stooping back and his creaking laugh! 

When the golden light of the morning fills 

The bowl of the sky, o'er the Norman hills 

With a wonderful, persuasive charm, 

He treads and trips from farm to farm. 

In and out and out and in. 

With a droop and a lift of his wizened chin, 

And a twist of his queer and elfish toes, 

Down and up and on he goes; 

Jigging, whirling, tossing his hands, 

He capers over the sweeping lands. 

Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A funny little old man is he ! 



33 



Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A merry little old man is he! 

And the sick folk rise at the sight of him. 

Hale of heart and strong of limb; 

And the mumbling chimney-corner crones 

Feel new life thrill through their bones; 

And babies babble and striplings rvm, 

Leaping as lambs do under the sun; 

Gambol the herds and the horses prance, 

And the pigs and the farm fowls join in the dance; 

And the flowers keep time and the grasses swing, 

And the osiers sway and the tree boughs sing. 

Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A merry little old man is he! 



34 



Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A welcome little old man is he! 

For he never comes, on his nimble toes, 

Save when war, with all of its sanguine woes. 

Is about to fade like the mists away. 

And they tell in the Norman lands to-day 

How the peasants have watched him ranging far 

Under the matin and vesper star. 

Seen him leading his rigadoon 

Under the glow of the autumn moon, 

While the winds and the waters without cease 

Have chanted of victory and peace. 

Oh, the dancing man of Normandy, 

A welcome little old man is he! 



35 



THE LUNAR BOW 

My mind is borne across the years. 
That flood with never ceasing flow, 

To a blue night when near Louvain 
I saw a wondrous lunar bow. 

The moon was regnant overhead. 
And the caressing wind was warm. 

While up the darkened west there rose 
The spectral streamers of the storm. 

Here spanned the bow, a thing of dream; 

From delicate red to amethyst. 
Each color of the spectrum limned 

Against the battlements of mist. 

A nocturne of such perfect hue, 

It made the silence seem more deep, 
And glorified a land that lay 
As peaceful as a child at sleep. 

(O ravaged garths, O trampled fields. 
Around which memory's halo shines! 

O lovely city of Louvain, 

With all your desecrated shrines!) 

A land of peace! — The vision still 
Abides despite the war and woe; 

Ah, might some healing Power bring back 
The peace beneath the lunar bow! 

[36 1 



AT THE YEAR'S DECLINE— 1916 

Lo, we have called them Huns, have cried them 
Vandals, 

And is there aught, my brother, to unsay 
Now dawn has quenched the night's irradiant candles. 
And up the orient climbs another day? 

Nay, rather we have saner grown, and cooler, 
Despite fresh horror stalking wide abroad, 

And blasphemous cacophonies of a ruler — 
Madman or mountebank — beseeching God! 

New names be theirs from out the dim dead ages. 
Names linked with irremediable pain — 

The swart Assyrian, with his savage rages, 
The tawny terrible hosts of Tamerlane ! 

Shall not calamity seize a ruthless nation 

That sows an innocent land with gaping graves. 

And then (fit deed for ceaseless execration !) 
Makes its surviving men and maidens slaves! 

There is no word too shameful, too abhorrent. 

No epithet too violent to be hurled 
At those that loosed this cataclysmal torrent 

And made a reeking shambles of the world! 

[37 1 



THE REEDS OF THE SOMME 

In the gusts of the wintry weather 

I heard the reeds of the Somme whispering together; 

"Brother, brother," 

Each said to the other, 

"Lo, how we have bled 

For our beloved Mother — 

For France, our Mother! 

And shall it be in vain. 

Our agony and pain. 

All of the precious blood that we have shed?" 

And the sky that leaned over. 

Like a lover, 

Answered, "Nay!" 

And each wind upon its vagrant way 

(Each wind that wandered wide) 

Made answer, "Nay!" 

And the Somme water. 

Red with slaughter. 

Answered, "Nay!" 

So every brother reed was satisfied. 



38 



A WOODEN CROSS 

Somewhere, in No Man's Land, a wooden cross, 
Swept by the rain and beaten by the sun! 

Pathetic? yes, and yet how small a loss; 
Among the many thousand crosses — one! 

How small a loss, you say; but nay! but nay! 

To a fair maid who cannot see for tears 
The flush of spring upon the hawthorn spray. 

It means the tragic darkening of the years. 



39 



AT BECQUINCOURT 

At Becquincourt, in Picardy, 

What, think you, there is left to see? 

'Mid ravage, ruin, wreck and loss. 

Only a Christ upon a cross! 

The Christ a figure gaunt and gray; 

The cross with one arm shot away. 

Is He not crucified again 
At Becquincourt, in Picardy, 
As aforetime on Calvary? 
Here all the agony and pain. 
Here all the torture and the tears, 
As in the far oflf elder years ! 
The same pathetic sight to see 
At Becquincourt, in Picardy! 



40] 



THE SPIRIT OF FRANCE 

What spirit animates to-day 

The soul of France? What vital spark? 
From out the fire that burned her clay 
At Rouen to an ash of gray, 

The living spirit of Jeanne D'Arc! 



[41] 



THE CHANT OF THE HUN 

Out of the dark of the ages, 

Out of the gloom and the night, 
A threat from the past's grim pages,- 

Ravin and ruin and blight. 
Ravage of son and daughter, 

Mercy and pity, none! 
Slaughter — slaughter — slaughter — 

Such is the chant of the Hun ! 

Piracy and pillage. 

Fury, famine and fire, 
Rape of city and village. 

The lust for agony, ire; 
Blood to be spilled like water 

Under the stars and the sun; 
Slaughter — slaughter — slaughter — 

Such is the chant of the Hun ! 



4^ 



A SUMMER MORNING 

The summer meads are fair with daisy-snow, 
White as the dove's wing, flawless as the foam 
On the brown beaches where the breakers comb 

When the long Trades their morning bugles blow; 

And over all there is a golden glow. 

For the sun sits ascendant in the dome; 

And smoke-wreaths rise from many a cottage home 

Where there is peace, and joy's full overflow. 

This is our heritage, but what of those 

Who crouch where Yser's sad, ensanguined tide 

Winds with its sluggish crescents, toward the sea; 
Where Termonde bells are silent, and the wide 
And stricken leagues of Flemish land disclose 
The ruthless wrong, the piteous agony! 



[43] 



WHAT TIDINGS 

What tidings, winds of May time, do ye bear? — 
What from the slopes of castle-guarded Rhine? 
What from the ancient shrine of Constantine, 

And from the fertile Flemish fields and fair? 

What word from where the Russian steppes lie bare 
Beneath a shrouded sun? What speech is thine 
From England, girdled by the green sea brine, 

And France, the dauntless and the debonair? 

What message from the Danube? Plangent tunes 
Have ye aforetime borne across the seas, — 
The hates and horrors of the bygone years, — 
But never frantic discords, frenzied runes 
Of murder and of madness such as these, — 
The Furies mocking at God's singing spheres I 



44 



THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAINS 

In Syrian mountain fastnesses of old 
There dwelt a man, inscrutable, malign, 
Who taking to himself a power divine. 

Sent emissaries from his guarded hold 

To scourge the earth; and horrors manifold 
He wrought through his insidious design 
To make men bow before his sovereign sign; 

Prayerful, yet pitiless, so the tale is told. 

Did he prevail? Did no avenging rod 
Descend on him, and exorcise his spell? 
Read on the page of history how he fell ! 
And think how one to-day who calls on God, 
And sends his sanguinary hordes abroad, 
May answer yet within the courts of Hell! 



45 



GREECE 

(1915) 

From high Olympus have the Muses fled; 

There is no hand to tend the sacred fire 

Upon their altars, none to touch the lyre, 
The lyre beloved of the immortal dead! 
None now at the Pierian fountain head 

Sets draught to lip, and sings with lyric ire. 

O for a bard to rise who should inspire 
The land to valor as when Sparta led ! 

For who so fatuous as to gainsay 
The hour is big with mighty destinies? 
Behold the world an amphitheatre 
Of war! The nations gripped in grim array; 
Times that should rouse a Pindar, and should stir 
To tragic fury a Euripides! 



[46 



ON AN AMERICAN SOLDIER SLAIN UPON 
THE MEXICAN BORDER 

Somewhere he sleeps his last undreamful sleep, 
Alike unmindful of the sun and rain, 
Somewhere, while we walk blithely, and are fain 

Of the bright evening star, the winds that sweep 

The vernal azure of the upper deep. 

But hark ! across the breadth of Texan plain 
Does he not cry to us, this soldier slain. 

Stark on some swale of sand, some barren steep? 

Should we forego the olive and the dove 
One little moment, were it wrong, O Lord, 

To clutch Thy vengeance from the skies above 

And smite with the white wrath that is Thy sword? 

Yea, with the swift and righteous might thereof — 
And glut the vulture with the rout abhorred ! 



47 



TEXAS RANGERS 

Nine men in the heart of night, 

A little resolute band; 
Nine men in the stark moonlight 

Crossing the Rio Grande ! 
Nine men, brand of the brave. 

Courage that will not down! 
Nine men at an open grave 

By old Hidalgo town ! 

Under the midnight what do they see? 

A corpse that is maimed and marred; 
Features a- writhe with agony; 

Hands that are seared and scarred! 
Do they remember the Alamo 

And the herd of Mexique spawn. 
And long once more for the vengeance blow. 

These lads of Texan brawn? 



I 



[48 



Crocket, Bowie, and Travis, they 

Call again from the sod. 
And all the slain that at Goliad lay 

Under the eye of God ! 
Ah, but you could not marvel, you 

Biding at peace afar, 
If you knew how the caitiffs sacked and slew 

'Neath the gleam of the fair Lone Star! 

Nine men! — they would not crave. 

But give them their due renown! 
Nine men by an open grave 

At old Hidalgo town! 
Nine men on their sinuous track, 

A little resolute band, 
Bearing a lifeless body back 

Over the Rio Grande! 



[49] 



MOTHER ENGLAND 

Mother England, though we fought you 
When you did us grievous wrong, 

And for justice we besought you. 
Take this homage of a song! 

Time has let the old wounds languish; 

Years have hid them in eclipse 
(Do you not regret the anguish 

Of the cruel Prison Ships?) 

Time has dimmed the past transgressions, 
Time, with its all-healing hand; 

(Do you not regret the Hessians, 
Hirelings ravaging a land?) 

Hate is as a burnt out ember; 

Now but dust your stubborn George; 
Yet we cannot but remember 

Lexington and Valley Forge! 

Still no lip can make denial 
That the ties of blood are true, 

And in this, your hour of trial, 
That our hearts hark back to you. 
[50] 



We recall we are invested 

By the rights of freedom drawn 

By the Barons, wrung and wrested, 
Centuries since, from grim King John. 

We recall ours is the glory, 

Ours, as yours, from days remote, 

Of the song and of the story 

Of the tongue that Shakespeare wrote. 

Ere the sinister alliance 

Round you close and o'er you break. 
Rouse, and cry the old defiance ! 

Sound again the drum of Drake! 

Mother England, though we fought you 
When you did us grievous wrong. 

And for justice we besought you. 
Take this homage of a song! 



[51] 



KITCHENER OF KHARTUM 

Blown mist shrouding the heather, where rarely a 

sun-ray smiles, 
The wild, bleak, windy weather over the Orkney Isles; 
The mournful curlews crying, then sudden the deep 

sea doom 
For the last great man of a fighting clan, for Kitchener 

of Khartum! 

Call the roll from the Black Prince down of many a 

valiant son, 
Marlborough, Cromwell, who spurned a crown and 

Wolfe and Wellington; 

Lucknow's hero, brave of the brave, yet still there 

will be room 
For him whose grave is the green sea wave, for 

Kitchener of Khartum! 

Tears, ye who sires were Saxons, and ye whose sires 

were Danes, 
And ye who feel the Norman blood pulse hot within 

your veins! 
For where — where is another knight of the peerless 

plume 
Shall lead ye in your hour of need like Kitchener of 

Khartum ! 

[5«] 



WALSYNGHAM WAY 

Walsyngham Way, they say, leads to the shrine of 
the Mother, 
Leads to the Virgin's shrine, that altar hallowed 
and fair, 
So they call it Walsyngham Way, that glimmering, 
shimmering other — 
The pathway we see at night climbing the vasts 
of the air. 

This grievous, pitiful year, this year of blood and of 
battle. 
This year of horror and hate, nations in grim 
array — 
When men in the shambles of war have fallen, 
slaughtered like cattle, 
Oh, the countless souls that have gone up Wal- 
syngham Way! 



Walsyngham Way is a pathway in England leading to a beautiful 
shrine of the Virgin. I'his name, according to Fiona MacLeod 
is sometimes given to the Milky Way. 

[58] 



A MAN OF THE PEAK 

(From the Trenches) 

I was a man of quiet; 

I am a man of the Peak; 
To live afar from riot 

Was all — is all I seek! 

Yet I have made no blunder 
To fight for the land I love, — 

Blue skies over, and under 
The winding dale of Dove! 

I have only this for leaven — 
Memory's golden spell; 

I dream that there was heaven; 
I know that here is hell! 



[54] 



A RECRUIT 

I know a little garden wet 
With opal dews in Somerset; 
'Tis there I would be back to-day 
About the bursting of the May, 
And see my love's eyes lifted; far 
More blue than hyacinths they are; 
And touch her lips; the lips of her 
Are sweeter than pressed lavender. 
But I may not — may not be there, 
And so I breathe to God this prayer,- 
Whate'er He may on me confer, 
May He be good — be good to her ! 



[55] 



IN LONDON-TOWN 

Dim are the lights in London-Town 

That erst shone bright and fair, 
But men go up and men go down 

About Trafalgar Square; 

And though Death hovers in the air 
All sense of fear is fled, 

With Nelson on his pillar there 
To lead as once he led ! 



[56] 



MAY IN DEVON 

Above the dales of Devon, 

About the droop of dark, 
High, high up in heaven 

Sings and sings the lark. 
How can it sing to greet the spring, 

Its soaring strains prolong. 
When many a Devon lad to-day 
Will ne'er again behold the May, — 

Is deaf to all its song ! 



[57] 



TO ALAN SEEGER 

Did some dark omen touch you, some grim warning 
Of fate impending, some, low-whispered breath, 

What time, your noble heart all danger scorning. 
You wrote — I have a rendezvous with Death? 

valorous one, impassionate and eager. 
True as alone the greatest souls are true, 

1 read, with eyes tear-moistened, Alan Seeger, 
How valiantly you kept your rendezvous! 



[58] 



U 015 871 624 W 



